With Her Last Breath
by IchigoTheStray
Summary: The war is over. Voldemort is dead. Narcissa is punished for the crimes of her husband as she weeps for the son she lost to his own father. Rated for violence.


Hey! This is Ichigo, and this is another short one-shot. It was Kaori's idea.

Kaori: The time span of this story is only about two minutes. I hope that you like this story as much as we do.

We don't own Harry Potter.

Kaori: Nope.

* * *

Hypocrisy.

That's what it was. Blind hypocrisy.

She didn't see their faces before their curses struck her. She heard voices, taunting, jeering. Daring her to stand up. But she didn't move. There was no point in moving. She just lay on her side on the floor, staring blankly as they kicked her, hurling insults. She heard the sounds of windows and furniture being smashed.

Ever since the end of the war, there had been no rest for her. First it was the Parkinsons. Then the Goyles. The Zabinis. The Notts. The Averys. All found beaten to death, their houses ransacked.

And now the Malfoys.

Another kick landed between her shoulder blades and she coughed, tasting blood in her mouth. She closed her eyes just for an instant, but it seemed like a lifetime.

When she was a child she had everything she ever wanted. She had toys, servants, friends. Her parents made her believe that the sun shone for her alone. And her only goal in life was to raise her own children.

The first time she met him was at their wedding. She was sixteen. He was twenty-nine. She waited with bated breath to see his face, and finally, she turned to him and he lifted her white veil. She froze. She had never seen a man like him. She knew in a heartbeat that he was dangerous. She knew in heartbeat that he was a snake in sheep's clothing. But he was absolutely captivating. She kept her gaze locked on his steel grey eyes as he bent down to kiss her. There was something in those eyes that was so entrancing, and yet so terrifying.

He hurt her. She screamed, cried, beat at his chest. She bit him. She begged him to stop. But he didn't. And when he had finished, he rolled over in bed and went to sleep, leaving her sobbing and vulnerable, curled up in the cold sheets, trying to get as far away from him as she could. As the years went on she stopped fighting and just lay there, letting him hurt her.

Their son was born.

Narcissa named him Draco. And she loved him like she had never loved in her life. She would kill for him. She would die for him. She would do anything to save him from becoming his father. But she grieved for him every day, because every day he seemed to look more and more like Lucius and less and less like her. And before she knew it, her bouncing baby boy was gone and a cruel puppet had taken his place, a puppet to whom Lucius was ventriloquist.

She opened her eyes. A broken picture frame was lying on its side a few feet from her face, its glass a shattered mess. It was a photograph of Draco with his first broom. He was six years old. His childish face laughed merrily at his mother where she lay, broken, on the floor. Tears began to blur her vision as the vicious blows stopped. She reached out, slowly, and touched the picture, not caring about the broken glass slicing her fingers. "Where is he?" she murmured to herself.

She knew that he had died in the war. But the eighteen-year-old who had given up his life on his father's instruction was not who she was looking for. Where was the boy in the picture? Where was the smiling child with his broomstick?

Her fingers lingered on the boy's face until a heavy boot came down on the picture frame and kicked it away. She didn't flinch as a heavy mahogany table leg struck her hard in the ribs. All she saw was the boy's face. The boy who had become someone else.

She drew a painful, ragged breath, her tears flowing like the blood from her hand. She didn't care if she died here. She had been dead for a long time.

She drew another breath, trying to find some shred of an existence higher than her own. She didn't need an answer, only an audience. But she found nothing. She coughed again, feeling everything going dark around her. She squeezed her eyes shut and pictured the face of that little six-year-old boy.

"Where is he?" she whispered. "What happened to my baby?"

She didn't open her eyes again.

* * *

Please review. 


End file.
